Controversial Beer Opinions (Round Two)

The TTB does limited spot checks. I know one guy that was fined for not being within the tolerance band.

 

Jeff, do you happen to know the amount of the fine?

Cheers!

 

To clarify, I love lagers too, and I have never seen you or any professional brewer engage in the kind of annoying snobbery I was talking about. But it’s fairly rampant on BA these days from a certain subset of folks who think that trashing IPAs is some sort of edgy take that shows how much more advanced their beer palates are.

 

No, someday I will see him and ask.

He said very few beers are tested, but they got caught.

 

I think the people who chose RIS as the style to brew for the Black Is Beautiful collaboration are crazy. Do we really need 800 different breweries releasing imperial stouts in July?? Did we need to make a black beer to lean into it? Why couldn’t we have made a crowd pleasing style like a kolsch, lager, pale ale, ect. If it was truly necessary to lean into the word “black“, we could have pointed to the awesome black label design.

 

Imagine the backlash if a brewery released 40s of malt liquor for this collab.

 

why do these “pale” beers have to be the “crowd-pleasers”? Huh? HUH??!?!?

Jokes aside, I think it would be crazy to brew an extremely pale colored beer and call it “Black is Beautiful”. It would defeat the purpose of the whole idea and probably stir the pot.

You can do a black lager, a dunkelwiezen, a dark saison. All of which can be a bit more refreshing than RIS.

EDIT: Didn’t realize there is a base recipe of an RIS for the collab.

 

As a "lagerbro" and a "coffee snob," thank you.

 

I for one love drinking imperial stouts in July, and the other 11 months too.

 

I def. see the point that many people wouldn't want to drink a stout in summer. I mean, I enjoy them all year around, but I don't think I know anyone else who drinks them routinely in summer. OTOH RIS last very well on shelf and, if they don't sell out due to the season, it would be a great thing to be reminded that Black Is Beautiful/Black Lives Matter when we see the bottles still on shelf, and enjoy some when the weather is cooler.

 

Put me in the club of people who will drink RIS all year round. Personally I am glad they used a stout as the recipe because non-adjunct stouts are relatively rare these days and I am curious to compare and contrast the Black is Beautiful variants from the various breweries. I am more excited for this than I was for All Together and I enjoyed a lot of the All Together beers.

It is also worth mentioning though that the original Black and Beautiful beer was never intended to be a collab it was going to be a Weathered Souls only release that evolved into a country wide collaboration so its not like the original goal was to put 800 different stouts into the market during the summer although you certainly won't hear me complaining about it. I also bet a lot of breweries who make variants are going to make limited amounts I know that Bell's is only going to be releasing their version at the brewery and taproom. I bet a lot of breweries also make limited amounts that never hit distro so I wonder how much of this we will even see siting on shelves during the fall.

 

AB-InBev works against craft beer. Sam Adams works with craft beer. It's that simple. What did pay to play do? Lead to more craft beer exposure? Good for promotion of the industry, legality aside. AB has done far more harm than good for craft breweries.

 

People are free to think and act as they feel. My equation is BBC and likely plenty of others in the craft beer world would do for their stockiholders the same as ABI does if they had the ability to do it. For me, that was when I stopped demonizing big beer, and went back to just demonizing companies involved in the destruction of the planet (which also is reflected in every other aspect of my lifestyle not just simple buying decisions at the store). YMMV

 

Well I think there is a big difference between the two, and if AB had their way they would probably get rid of craft beer as we know it and bring us back to the monopoly days of just being served their beer. Sam Adams works to promote all in the industry, even if it means using bad corporate tactics to achieve the end goals. If they have the power and the money and the ability to defeat the opposition against craft beer then I say let them do as they please, just like big beer does.

 

When was that?

 

Probably around the time of prohibition and it's lift.

 

A-B has never been a monopoly. Not even close.

 

And Adolphus Busch didn't do those things ABI does and was the most quality conscious beer brewer in the country from what I've read. Who can predict the future? Not I. One thing I do notice, though, is folks who are dishonest in a small way are the same folks who later are dishonest in a big way. And there are plenty of things and reasons to demonize small brewers that aren't true of big brewers. That's another part of the equation that makes it impossible for me to act as though craft brewers are singing cumbaya together in brotherly love when Big Beer is sacrificing goats to Satan, your Robin Hood defense of Sam Adams notwithstanding, lol.

Like I say, people are free to make their own decisions and take their appropriate actions. I explained mine.

 

Let's try not to be so literal here. My point stands. AB, BMC, big beer, whatever you want to call them all work against craft beer and Sam Adams/BBC works for and with the craft beer industry, not against them.